Game Play: Destroy All Humans 2

I was a pretty big fan of the original Destroy All Humans ... it was one of those titles that really sold me on Pandemic. The other title was the incredibly excellent Mercenaries ... and if anything Destroy All Humans 2 succeeds in the same ways both of those title excel.

The gameplay is fairly sandbox - you play as the desctruction loving Crypto running random missions across multiple locations. Sometimes you get to hop in your saucer to do battle with various army units. Missions are pretty varied for the genere, moreso than Mercenaries even, with anything from simply demolition to throwing cars onto roofs. An excellent addition is the ability to coop at any time during the game. All the normal missions can be played with two players - just plug another controller and you have an additional Crypto clone. While the interface and scenery can be a little distracting for split screen at first (this game screams for high definition) - the overall fun of zapping people, taking over their bodies and forcing them to dance with your mental powers is even more fun with a friend.

The voice acting is great. The guy who did the voice for Zim plays Crypto's commander and it's just as much of a treat for Zim fans as it was in the first game. The Nicholson impersonation for Crypto is equally fun and you even get Anthony Stewart Head (Giles from Buffy) popping in during the game. The dialogue is funny, extremely so for a video game, and the cutscene conversations are often worth the full play-through to get the complete banter.

There are some bugs. Units will occasionall spawn (or get TK'd) into walls. This even happened to me once, causing a need for a restart. The interface occasionally freaks out, especially during coop mode, but nothing dramatic. The missions could have used another round of QA - it's possible to destroy your objective without realizing it. And when I mean not realizing it, I include the computer - leaving you confused why that dissident isn't showing up when he should.

Still, thumbs up for this title. It's not terribly long and even shorter when you have two players working together. I think I played it on and off for about a week before we beat it. It is, however, well worth the ride.


tagged: game, gaming